Tag: warmmilk

My almost- 3 year old has never been a great sleeper. As an infant she had colic, cluster fed all night long, and refused to nap unless held. To this day I am really not sure how she survived on so little sleep, or how we did for that matter. From around 1- 2 years old she had mild bouts of waking in the middle of the night, but for the most part she slept through the night. When 2 years hit a switch flipped. She FOUGHT FIGHTS going to bed, she wakes all the time, we started using a sound machine/projector just to distract her from not wanting to sleep long enough to pass out, and worst of all she started waking at FIVE AM or earlier. Every single day. We tried every tactic in the book, but absolutely nothing worked. Finally 6 months later we have her sleeping till at least 5:30-5:45am and staying in her room if she wakes before her clock is green. I will come back to that in a bit.

WHAT DID We DO?….not all at one time

Extremely strict bedtime routine. – Warm bath, lavender oil lotion, 2 books, turn on twinkle twinkle(After her 18 mo sleep regressions we got rid of the projector feature of her sound machine and just let the music play), snuggle up with baby doll, kisses, and good night.

New bedtime- only books.

Warm milk and a small snack if she wanted before bedtime routine.

Quiet time and winding down 30 min prior to bathtime.

Returning to her room only once for bedtime fussing and requests. (Hugs, cup, different stuffed animal etc. )

Cutting any type of sugar out, especially in the afternoon. – No juice, fruit, cereals etc

Allowing her to have a few fun books and quiet toys to play with when she wakes, instead of waking the entire house at the crack of dawn. – At this point we just gave in to the fact that some kids just aren’t sleepers. Our pediatrician said she was getting ENOUGH sleep, just not our desired amount.

Pushing bed time a little, thinking maybe she would sleep in a little later. – We made bedtime at 8:30pm consistently for a little over a week and 4:30- 5 am was her wake up time. Every day. So, that obviously didn’t work.

Fresh air every day, and focusing on a good amount of physical activity after dinner time. – Just to make sure she got all of her wiggles out and she was good and tired.

Lavender Essential oils. – I will link here for some information about how this works for ALOT of children for sleep problems!

Parenting to sleep/stay asleep. – I wasn’t fond of this, but some Dr’s do recommend it, other do not. I personally am a very gentle parent and I believe that bedtime as any other situation with a child should be a teaching and learning experience rather than discipline. I didn’t want any type of punishments related to nighttime, mostly out of fear that it would make it worse, but laying down the law a little bit did help some. Things like this helped a little :”We don’t scream and yell, and if that’s what you choose to do then you will go down and sit in time out until you can use your words”, “If you go wake your brother instead of coming to mommy then you’re going straight to time out”, “If we don’t get our sleep at bedtime/naptime then we don’t get to go ….” I don’t think it helped the amount of sleep that either of us were getting, but the attitude definitely shifted.

If you are struggling with all of the above solutions not working, then hopefully this will help you and your little ones like it has helped us!

I found it while googling in the middle of the night. It was definitely a last resort, but WELL WORTH THE MONEY. I have seen it retailed at $22-$29. The link above is for Amazon with the cheapest price that I have found at $22.

It is a clock with a night light that glows green when it’s OK for your child to get out of bed. It has a constant night light if you choose to use it, but turns off with a button.

For toddlers who can’t tell time it is there is a cute little robotic face option instead of the time. When your toddler is older and needs a clock it is a regular alarm clock with a snooze, and a nap timer.

The main feature of this clock is obviously the light up at wake time feature. The back of the clock has a great little concealed program pad in the back. It was extremely easy to set up, and the directions were very clear and descriptive. You set a time like you would for an alarm, but instead of a noise going off the back light lights up green. The light is pretty dim, so if your child is still sleeping then it wont wake them. It is easy for parents to program; grows with families by helping them get more sleep, and then teaching children growing independence with the alarm clock!

When BK#1 wakes up at the crack of dawn she knows to wait in her room till her clock turns green, and sometimes she even falls back asleep while waiting. It took her a week or so to really understand what was going on and after a few weeks we have slowly changed the time that it turns green to a desired time for us! {We started with a time close to when she had been waking and pushed it up by 5 minutes every few days.} She gets the feeling of accomplishment that comes with completing a job well done. And, Ok to Wake! is something that can be completed successfully every day!

It comes with a USB cord and has battery backup, and a second interchangeable face plate.

The only thing that I don’t like is that the wall adapter is not included. You can use any USB wall adapter you already own for phones, tablets, etc. though. It wasn’t a huge deal, but just something I wish I would have paid more attention to. I recommend having it plugged in because if not then it is free standing and your toddler might just build a book tower to

I 100% give this awesome clock a 5 out of 5 stars and it is most definitely something that every family needs!

I would love for my daughter to be a sleeper, but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. Ok to Wake! has definitely given me some more sleep! I hope everything we tried can help you too!

~Amanda

**Burrito Buzz received this product at low or no cost for the purpose of review or testing. No compensation for a positive review was provided. All product reviews are based 100% off of our personal experiences with a product and we never guarantee a positive review.**